Eurasia note #80 - Mercenary Group Quits Ukraine, Occupies Russian Military HQ

Wagner's swan song, mutiny, theatre or despair?

• Boss of mercenary contractor Wagner seizes southern Russia military HQ

• Accuses air force of attacking his men, takes control of aerodrome

• Demands change in military leadership whom he blames for losses

• Prigozhin accused military of witholding munitions, working for “enemy”

• Bureaucrats circle wagons, want to be rid of Wagner group

• Wagner fighters are about to be contracted directly to the Russian military

• Putin calls rebellion a “stab in the back” as Russia fights for its survival

• Russian media calls it an “armed insurrection” - same words as U.S. deep state

• Prigozhin denies coup, says he won’t obstruct military operations in Ukraine

• Military denounces “provokatsiya” but was Wagner’s boss provoked to implode?

• UK MOD calls it “most significant challenge to the Russian state”

• There are a few more scripts to this drama

(1,700 words or about nine minutes of your company.)
See also: “Plague, War, Famine... Africa Next. As war in Ukraine runs its course, the chaos makers may be shifting their focus” (Moneycircus, May 31, 2022).

Wagner boss at southern Russia military HQ at Rostov-on-Don - Telegram channel of Prigozhin’s Concord group

Tbilisi, 24 June, 2023

The head of the Wagner private military company seized a military headquarters vowing to remove the top brass that he blames for stalemate in Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin walked into the Rostov-on-Don HQ from which the Ukraine offensive is coordinated, sat on the steps with commanders including deputy defence minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov, and proceeded to berate them.

On Friday Prigozhin accused them of incompetence and of attacking, deliberately or accidentally, his own men. You can see the exchange here (English subtitles thanks to Kevin Rothrock.) [1]

Following their chat, the commanders are reported to have fled.

Prigozhin also took aim at defence minister Sergei Shoigu, accusing him of failing to acknowledge battlefield losses and the challenges in holding the line against Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“Not a coup”

Prigozhin accuses military brass of “bringing total cr-p to the president’s desk” — minimising the scale of Russian losses, the challenge and hence the need for reinforcements.

The spin in the Western press is that this is a coup, rather than another of Prigozhin’s vocal protests against the top brass. Russia Today, or RT as it brands itself, also called it a coup. So now Russia, as well as the U.S., has its own “armed insurrection.”

Prigozhin has said “this is not a military coup, this is a march of justice. Our actions do not interfere with the troops in any way.” In other words, it smacks of desperation. He has lost his long-running feud with Shoigu.

After an earlier criticism of Shoigu, the Russian military witheld ammunition from Wagner in Bakhmut. “Those who interfere with us trying to win this war are absolutely, directly working for the enemy,” Prigozhsin said in February, one year into the invasion. [2]

As you can see in the dramas playing out in Washington DC, it is almost impossible to beat the bureaucrats. Shoigu may be incompetent but he is in power. Prigozhin is not.

Bear in mind that RT like other state broadcasters, BBC etc, carefully tailors its messaging alongside the “news” so the use of a phrase that has been drilled into the heads of Americans for two years is a purposeful choice. How is Moscow going to use this “armed insurrection?” Same as Washington DC.

On Saturday morning Putin, looking and sounding angry, took to the television cameras, denouncing a “criminal adventuristic campaign… equivalent to armed mutiny.”

The Russian defence ministry said Prigozhin’s accusations “do not correspond to reality,” calling his actions by the Russian term, “provokatsiya.”

“The Russian Armed Forces continue to carry out combat missions” in Ukraine, the ministry said on Telegram. In Moscow, however, troops were deployed in the streets, with missile batteries on the roof of the defence ministry which stands on Frunzenskaya embankment facing the Moskva river and Gorky Park across the water.

There is almost certainly more to this drama.